


Something Has to Change

by Underwater_Alien



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:41:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22730086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Underwater_Alien/pseuds/Underwater_Alien
Summary: Tonight marks the fifth time Max has come to Neil's door, drunk and rambling about his girlfriend. They both know they can't keep doing this. Somehow or another, things have to change.
Relationships: Max/Neil (Camp Camp)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 96





	Something Has to Change

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day <3

Something has to change.

Tonight marks the fifth time Max has come to Neil’s door drunk. So drunk he can hardly stand. The fifth time he’s knocked loud enough to wake the dead, the fifth time he’s stumbled into the small apartment rambling about something or other, and the fifth time Neil has had to check him for signs of alcohol poisoning before sitting him on the couch with a glass of water and a warm blanket. He can’t keep doing this, he thinks. He has his own life to manage. Is he Max’s best friend or his babysitter?

Neil wants to be angry. He has started staying awake on Friday nights, anxiously waiting by the door, staring into his coffee cup and watching the weak overhead light dance on the liquid surface. He checks the time, does a few silent laps around the kitchen to shake off the nerves, and sits back down. It never works, and he’s as restless as ever until around two or three a.m. when he hears the sound that signals Max’s arrival. Neil puts down his cup and opens the door, ready to scold Max for being irresponsible and stupid. He wants to raise his voice- make it clear this will be the last time it ever happens and if he sees Max on his front step again he’s not letting him in- but something stops him every time. Something about Max’s vulnerability, or the way he looks at Neil like he makes him happier than anything else in the world. And Neil wants to be angry, but he just can’t.

Tonight it is the same. Max is sprawled across Neil’s cheap grey couch, Neil is in the other room taking deep breaths, and they both know, somehow, that this really will be the last time.

“She told me I’m...annoying. Can you believe that? Neil, do you think I’m annoying?” Max takes another sip of his water and burps.

“Incredibly,” Neil sighs, walking back through the door frame. “But you’re lucky I take care of you anyway.” Max laughs mirthlessly.

“Fuckin… girls, man.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Neil raises an eyebrow. “Did something happen between you and Cass?”

Max doesn’t reply, and Neil realizes that the last time he saw the two of them together was in a photo Cass posted online two weeks ago. They had both been smiling in the picture, but Neil has known Max since they were children and could instantly tell his best friend was faking it. But he hasn’t connected the dots until now.

“Max?” He says tentatively. “Are you all right?”

He inches closer to the couch, barely able to see in the low light, and realizes something else. 

Max is crying.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Max says quietly, wiping his face.

“Bullshit.” Neil says without thinking.

“No, I am...We just fight so much.” Neil remembers being on the phone with Max a week ago and hearing muffled yelling in the background, but not thinking much of it. “She always...she says… Whatever. She doesn’t get me, man. You do, though.”

Neil’s concern turns instantly into discomfort. Max is sitting up, leaning closer to where Neil is standing, and he has this look in his eyes that suggests he is thinking about exactly all the ways he wants Neil to get him. The mood shift happened so fast- Neil’s mind is reeling- and he certainly isn’t ready to do whatever it is Max is hoping for.

“H-hold on,” he says. “Wait a minute.” Max is crawling to the edge of the couch, his face nearly touching Neil’s, and Neil wants to move away but his body stays stubbornly put. Oh god, Max is going to kiss him. Why doesn’t he step back?  _ Does  _ he want this? 

“You...get me,” Max whispers, crashing into Neil. And then their lips are colliding, messy and harsh. Not like Neil thinks a first kiss ought to be at all. It is all hot breath and sloppy movements. Max’s tongue is searching for a way into Neil’s mouth, and for a second he almost lets it. But Neil comes to his senses quickly, and pulls his head away, wide-eyed in shock.

“No,” He says. “This isn’t right, Max, you know it isn’t.” He’s about to go on, but Max’s eyes are closed. He burps loudly, and slumps over the arm of the sofa. Either dead or asleep. Neil still can’t move.

How did he get here? 

And what the hell is he going to do now?

  
  


~~~

  
  


Around eleven o’clock, Neil is awoken by the sound of cabinets squeaking open and shut, and hears footsteps padding back and forth across the fake-wood floor. He shuffles out into the main living area, rubbing his eyes.

“Max, are you..?” He squints. The windows are still shut but he can hear crunching coming from the general area of the couch. “Are you eating cereal in the dark?”

The crunching stops. Max laughs.

“Maybe,” he says. Neil pulls open the shades and the room is flooded with light. Both he and Max have to shield their eyes from it for a moment, but when his eyes adjust he can see that Max is indeed wrapped in a blanket and cradling a bowl of Lucky Charms. Neil had forgotten he ever even bought that cereal, so it’s definitely past expired, but something tells him Max doesn’t care. 

“You okay?” Neil asks. 

“Never been better,” Max says between bites.

“Good, good.” Neil starts to make himself another cup of coffee. “Because this is the fifth time you’ve come to my apartment at some stupid hour of the morning, drunk as all hell. Fifth. And...and you said last time-”

“I know what I said last time.” 

They both stop, and for a while it is silent except for the sound of Neil pouring coffee grounds into a filter. Neither of them makes eye contact, they just continue on, and it is almost like the picture of a beautiful domestic summer morning. Sunbeams are streaming into the kitchen and painting the cabinets around Neil’s head golden while he putters about making breakfast, still in his pajamas. But the memory of what happened last night is burning a hole through Neil’s skull, and by the time he finally sits down at the kitchen table with his full mug he absolutely can’t take it anymore. He slams his fist on the table with a  _ bang. _

“Damn it, I’m worried about you, Max.”

“Don’t be.” Max shrugs, either completely unaffected by the sudden noise or hiding it very well. He’s already finished his cereal, but is still holding the bowl in his lap and playing with the spoon to avoid looking at Neil.

“I have to be!” Neil retorts. “There’s clearly something going on here, and I can’t just sit here pretending to be your best friend if I just let it go on. So yes, I’m worried about you, okay? Tell me what I can do to help you.”

Max swirls the milk in his bowl around and around, still not looking up. Neil can’t sit still anymore, and just to fill the silence he gets up and takes the empty bowl, bringing it to the sink to wash it. Max turns to playing with his hair. Neil turns on the faucet. Max pulls on his curls and watches them bounce back and forth. And they are back to not talking. Max lets out a loud breath and sits up straight.

“I’m sorry, alright? I’m sorry I’m so annoying and I always leave you to pick up my messes and I’m sorry that I can’t stop myself every time. Yours is the only other address I know. I just ask the taxi driver to take me here and then I crash and let you take care of me again and again and it’s stupid. I’m stupid. There’s nothing you can do. This was the last time, I promise.”

Neil can see Max look up at him once or twice out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t turn around. He hears the telltale beep of Max deleting whatever messages Cass undoubtedly left him last night from his phone. But Neil just drowns it all out, making a great deal of noise pointedly scrubbing the bowl Max ate out of as aggressively as he can without breaking anything. Water is starting to soak into his shirt from where he’s splashed himself in all of his dramatics. But still dishes clack and ding and bang together in the sink, until finally Max gets up to tie his shoes by the front door and Neil stops. 

“Don’t go,” Neil says suddenly, straightening up so quickly he drops the cup he is holding into the soapy water. The noise makes both of them jump. He keeps going. “Do you have  _ any _ idea what you did last night before I went to bed?” He turns around to see Max’s bewildered expression.

“No,” Max says, “But the look on your face is telling me it was something serious. Did I break something?”

“No.”

“Throw up all over your furniture?”

“No, Max, you-”

“Oh, fuck, did I hurt someone?”

“FOR GOD’S SAKE, MAX, YOU KISSED ME!”

Max’s eyes go as wide as dinner plates. Neil is breathing heavily. Max doesn’t seem to know what to say, and Neil doesn’t either. He hadn’t been sure before how to break the news, but it needed to happen. They can’t be together, at least not while Max is still in a relationship with someone else. It was so, so wrong, what they did. But underneath all that, Neil wants desperately to kiss him again. And as much as that makes him ashamed, he can’t shake the feeling. He really, really wants to kiss Max again, except this time while they’re both sober. And he wants to help Max break up with Cass, if he can. 

“Listen. I think what you’re going through is just falling out of love. Like, you remember that you used to love Cass, but you just don’t feel it so much anymore. You fight with her all the time, right?” Neil wipes his wet hands on his jeans, and steps a little bit closer to where Max is sitting. “Maybe it’s time you stop hanging on to something that doesn’t work.”

Max says nothing, just stares up at Neil with a sad, puzzled expression. Neil’s face drops almost imperceptibly at the realization that Max isn’t responding, but Max still stays silent, and Neil understands. He probably has no god damned idea what he’s supposed to say to that. 

Neil sits down at the table, facing away, staring at the newspaper headlines. The words overlap and start to blur together, but he isn't really paying attention. He's trying to keep his heart from jumping up his throat. He hadn't registered it until now, but his heart is pounding in his chest and he’s finding it hard to breathe; He'd needed to tell Max about last night, but the doubt is beginning to creep in regardless. Has he just ruined everything?

"Fuck, man, I'm sorry for that too," Max says. Neil's head snapped up- that wasn't at all what he'd expected Max to say. 

"You are?"

"Well, yeah, I mean I probably made you really uncomfortable, right? In addition to all the other stuff. I..should definitely go." 

"No!" Neil says, a little too loudly and a little too quickly. He backtracks. "It didn't. Make me uncomfortable, that is. I mean, it kind of did because you were drunk and we'd always just been best friends, but… no. It was really nice, actually."

"What?" Max is completely frozen in his tracks. Halfway between Neil and the door. Halfway between staying in Neil's life forever and just walking out on everything. Neil swallows hard, his heart still beating fast and his palms starting to get sweaty. He can't let Max take another step.

"Do you...want to do it again?" He asks. And it hasn’t even been a second before he wants to take it back. He knows they shouldn’t- they  _ can’t _ \- but…

“One thing first,” Max says, pulling his phone from his pocket. He dials Cass’s number. Neil watches him walk into the other room and close the door. Things are finally changing.

  
  


~~~

  
  


It has only been a day since Max stumbled into Neil’s apartment for the fifth and final time, but it feels like so much longer. They are laying on the grey couch, Neil with his head in Max’s lap, Max with his fingers in Neil’s hair, and the TV playing whatever movie is on channel 107 tonight. But it isn’t about the movie, Neil thinks, gazing up into Max’s green eyes, and it never was. He’d suggested turning on the TV earlier because he wanted to be here, in this moment, being held by the boy he’d been quietly in love with for years. He’d wanted to fall asleep there and maybe wake up in the same place in the morning, Max still underneath him because he hadn’t wanted to get up and wake Neil. Neil wanted what he imagined Max and Cass used to have. Back when they were happy.

It hasn’t been easy, though. When Max called Cass this morning, Neil could hear raised voices even through the door. Even over the sounds he was making finishing the dishes. Even over the beating of his own heart in his ears. He could tell the breakup (because that must have been what it was, right?) wasn’t going well, by the way Max sounded when he shouted back. Annoyed and sad. The way he always sounds when talking about Cass, now that Neil thinks about it. But now that is long over. Now they are here, on the couch, and Neil is sure that things are different. Yesterday he was sitting by the door, wondering if Max was okay, and tonight he knows that Max is fine. And that he will never come to Neil’s door drunk and upset about his girlfriend again. He will never have to wonder if he loves her anymore.

Neil gets up gingerly, and makes his way to the kitchen as quietly as possible. He grabs a glass from the cabinet, fills it with water, and turns back. A woman on the TV is crying about something, and the man standing across from her doesn’t seem to care. 

“Max," He whisper-shouts in the general direction of the couch. "Do you want anything while I’m up?”

The movie goes quiet for a moment, while Neil pauses for a response, and he realizes something.

Max is snoring.

He gives a quick, breathy laugh and moves to tuck the blanket around Max’s shoulders. He looks so calm and relaxed, Neil thinks. He yawns and checks the time again. Well past three in the morning, and definitely time for him to get some sleep.

“Goodnight,” he whispers to Max’s silhouette. 

He flicks off the lights.


End file.
